A nationwide initiative to measure pesticides, heavy metals, veterinary drugs, hormones, and nutrients in public school lunch food has yielded concerning results: Of the 43 school items tested, 41, or 95 %, contained detectable levels of glyphosate. Glyphosate, the most widely used weed killer in the world, is a known carcinogen and is toxic to human health in a variety of ways.
Indeed, glyphosate exposure can cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other cancers, and has also been shown to be endocrine disrupting, damaging to sperm and reproductive organs as well as to the brain, liver, and kidneys.
“We have a national crisis on our hands,” said Zen Honeycutt, the director of Moms Across America, the non-profit organization dedicated to the wellbeing of America’s children, which funded the study.
“Our government is allowing our children to be poisoned with a shocking number of toxins that contribute to various health, behavioral, and learning issues,” Honeycutt said in a press release.
Independent, third-party testing of the 43 school lunch items revealed that:
Pizza is poison: The highest levels of glyphosate and the chemical glyphosate’s breaks down into, AMPA, were found in beef tacos and pizza. The average level of glyphosate in pizza was 154.51 ng/g.
Wheat is contaminated: 100% of the wheat products tested were positive for glyphosate, averaging 42.09 ng/g.
Public school lunch food contains a plethora of other problematic pesticides: In addition to glyphosate, 74% of the school lunch samples also contained at least one harmful pesticide: Thiabendazole, an immune suppressant, was found in 27.9% of the samples, Piperonal Butoxide, a developmental toxin that causes birth defects and neurodevelopment disruptions, was in 41% of the samples, and Pyrimethanil, which causes thyroid tumors in animals, was detected at 595 parts per billion on an apple.
But the bad news about school food didn’t stop there.
All of the school lunch samples also contained heavy metals, some at levels up to 6,293 times higher than the EPA’s maximums allowed in drinking water.
In addition, veterinary drugs and hormones were also found in the school lunch foods at alarmingly high levels.
Not Nutritious
The study also analyzed the nutrient content of the lunch food. Unfortunately, the majority of the samples were abysmally low in nutrients.
“The nutrient density of the food is almost completely deficient,” Honeycutt said, adding that nutritionally deficient food leaves “children’s bodies starving for nutrients, unable to develop properly, and lacking nutrients that their brains need to learn and make sound decisions.
“If our government cares about America remaining a superpower and a prosperous nation, it must immediately take action to supply organically grown, nutrient-dense food to our nation’s children,” Honeycutt said.
How Do We Get This Poison Out of the Food Supply?
1. Stop treating your lawn and garden with Roundup or any other herbicides. Ask your Home Owners Association, if you belong to one, your local public and private schools, and your city administrators to stop using glyphosate as well.
2. Buy only organic food, either certified organic from the grocery store or directly from farmers who don’t treat their crops with any harmful pesticides or herbicides.
3. Explain to your public-school kids why you don’t let them purchase school lunch food. At the same time, talk to their teachers and the principal about your concerns about glyphosate.
4. Share the results of this study with school administrators and the local schoolboard and ask them to stop feeding toxic, nutritionally devoid food to children.
5. Support Moms Across America and other eco-friendly non-profits that are dedicated to improving the nation’s health and getting toxins out of the environment. (Another of my favorites is Friends of Trees.)
6. Read Dr. Stephanie Seneff’s book, Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate is Destroying Our Health and the Environment, which is coming out in paperback this fall. Seneff’s book, which has been compared to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, is a game changer (full disclosure: I helped her edit it). Buy a copy for every environmentalist, ecologist, public health official, educator, and journalist you know.
7. Stop vaccinating your kids: Testing also sponsored by Moms Across America in 2016 found glyphosate in several vaccines routinely given to children. Given the high rates of childhood cancer and cognitive decline, vaccines containing glyphosate cannot be considered safe. Tell your medical providers that your family has decided to delay vaccination until all childhood vaccines are tested and certified glyphosate-free.
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Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science writer and book author. She earned her B.A. from Cornell University, her M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from Emory University. A contributing writer at the Epoch Times, she is also the author/editor of eight books. Sign up for her free private emails at www.JenniferMargulis.net. Help us keep this content free for everyone and support independent journalism by becoming a paid subscriber to Vibrant Life, which costs less than a cup of coffee a month.
READ the REAL ANTHONY FAUCI by RFK, Jr. LISTEN to him speak on his CHILDREN’S HEALTH DEFENSE blog! YOU can decide for yourself whether he has any sense. Don’t just parrot what you hear ABOUT him. Listen TO him, and consider whether he is well read, knowledgeable, well educated, has a terrific staff to back him up, well travelled and aware of the issues he presents. SURELY you know a KENNEDY has had every advantage as far as education, travel, money, excellent mentors (well, for the most part…) and all of that? Look at his trial record as far as how many cases he has won. What all has he done for kids, for people in general, for the earth?!
I’m no democrat— but this is one democrat I’ve come to adore. (Sorry to lay it on so thick but he does get trash talked for no good reason. )
This makes me physically ill in knowing that we are feeding kids this junk. I am not a fan of public schools for a plethora of reasons, and this is just another example of how they continue to fail children.
Having served in Africa years ago, there wasn’t a lot of money and yet we spent time ensuring kids would receive proper nutrition and the highest quality we could afford. That was the priority of people in charge who deeply cared and as a result they selected the best for the kids. Shouldn’t this be the expectation for the country that basically leads the world?
This is a systemic symptom of a very sick system. The government is absolutely accountable for the chemicals they have continued to permit in foods. Those in leadership positions should be ashamed. The lunches they approve for children are a trickle down of the gross failure they continue to operate under.
How do we change this? I mean really change this? I’ve been reading articles like this for years. I’ve seen lunches they serve in Europe and my heart breaks in knowing that children here have to eat this ‘garbage’. It is time parents demanded better for their children, our future!